1) Identity over time: How do people
construct their temporally-extended identity? In my lab, we think about
identity at the level of the individual (personal identity, self), as well as
relational and collective identity (the aspects of identity that come from
relationships and group membership – for example, gender, ethnicity,
nationality). Each of these kinds of identity cannot exist only in the present–
they have a past and a future. How people reconstruct and remember their
personal and collective past, and how they imagine and simulate their personal
and collective future have implications for current identity.
Temporally-extended identity also has implications for well-being, motivation
and goal-pursuit, decision-making, and judgments of others.

2) Beliefs about the
nature of change: People can be powerfully affected by their implicit
beliefs, or lay theories, about how the world works. People diverge in their
beliefs about whether people, groups, and particular attributes are changeable
over time or are fixed and stable. Researchers in my lab are investigating how
these beliefs alter people’s memories, predictions, and judgments. We are also
interested in the motivational and situational factors that cause people to
adopt and sometimes alter their own beliefs about change.

3) Motivation and future goal-pursuit: How do
individuals' representations of the past and future influence their motivation
to pursue long-term goals in the face of immediate costs or temptations? This
question – how people grapple with incurring immediate costs to reap long-term
benefits - applies to many domains including academic goals, health goals
(exercise and healthy eating), financial planning, and making environmentally
sustainable decisions. We are also investigating the factors that lead people
to misperceive the subjective likelihood of future risks and benefits, which in
turn can affect their willingness to take action in the present. For example,
if people underestimate the likelihood or risk of climate change, they will be
less inclined to take action now that could help avert worse outcomes in the
future.

4) The psychology of time: People's subjective
experience of time can often differ markedly from calendar or clock time.
Points in time in the past or future may seem close or distant, regardless of
their actual proximity. A period of time may seem to pass quickly or slowly,
regardless of actual duration. Subjective time can have a powerful effect on
people’s experience of events, independent of actual chronological time. Lab
members are investigating factors that cause differences in subjective time
perception as well as implications for identity, decisions, and social
judgments. For example, people see past successes as subjectively more
recent than past failures (even when they really occurred at the same time). Happy
relationship partners view their relationship problems as further away than
unhappy partners. People may also see future events they dread as further away
than events they look forward to, which can affect their tendency to prepare
for these events.

5) Sociocultural influences on the self: How does
a society's cultural norms affect self-appraisals, behaviour, and
relationships? In my lab we have examined sociocultural norms for ideal
physical appearance and how they influence women's and men's self-image and
beliefs about their social worth. For example, we find that women who are
exposed to societal messages about beauty and thinness base their self-worth on
appearance and are more attuned to beauty as a measure of their social worth. This
can have disastrous implications for their security in close relationships.